


her face haunts me, even in the dead of night

by bluestxrsbats



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Good Parent Alfred Pennyworth, It seems I can only write angst, Tim Drake Feels, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim Drake is Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19717945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestxrsbats/pseuds/bluestxrsbats
Summary: Tim Drake is a computer genius. His siblings have come to accept that he works on case files instead of sleeping, because that’s Tim.What they don’t know, however, is that Tim sits staring to space instead, plagued by the faces of citizens he has failed to save.It’s hard to count your victories when all you can see is your loses.





	her face haunts me, even in the dead of night

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, I wanted to write a Tim Drake fic. Of course, I can only seem to write angst.
> 
> So much for writing something cheerful.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy. Please leave kudos and comments if you like it. Thank you :)
> 
> — thank you for 40 kudos! This is my favourite ficlet that I have written to date, so thank you! :)

It was late, far too late for Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne to be awake. But he was. Patrol was long finished, and even the rhythmic clang of Damian training with his Katana on the other side of the Manor had ceased. The thick suffocating blanket of night had fallen, and the cold cases had come out.

He should be in bed, should be sleeping, that he knows. But he can’t. His mind is active, buzzing, still fully alive and not willing to shut down. 

A case file about something, at this point he’s not sure what, sits on his computer screen staring blindly back at him. The words have blurred into black splodges, the pictures simply just bright colours. He’s tried to focus on the paragraphs, but in the end has succumbed to the darkness that he always falls into, every night.

Alfred’s been up twice, even utilising the threat of turning off the WiFi. They both know he won’t, Tim would find a way around it easily and end up being awake for longer. But it’s the thought that counts. The fact that he cares.

The rest of his sibling have accepted that this is what Tim does when he should be sleeping. Going over cold cases, new cases, ones that the others can’t look at or solve. Little do they know that, mostly, he can’t read the pages of cases that sit on his desktop, proud lies that Tim displays. It’s better that they think that he’s doing something to make a difference, that Red Robin’s more qualified to do this job than any other rich kid.

Because really, Tim sits in front of his computer and stares into space for hours on end. 

Sometimes, something will catch his eye and he’ll stare at that if it’s interesting; other times the silence and trance like aura will procure some sort of idea that solves a case. But mostly, Tim sees the faces of the people that he failed to save stuck in his mind like a horror film that you can’t turn off.

It’s hard to count your victories when all you can see is your losses.

Having a photographic memory had always made life easier for Tim at school, at home, in general. Tests were a walk in the park on a sunny day, so were speeches and debates. He was known by his peers as the charming billionaires son who could remember everyone’s name even if he had only met you once. Tim never once thought it would end up being his nemesis, haunting him like it does. 

He can see the moles, the freckles across the faces of the citizens he failed. He can see the glassy eyes, the thin stream of blood that melds with their lips, the blood drying brown and cracking. He can see the way that their bodies are skewed, the way that he failed to save them written in the way their lifeless body lies.

The people of Gotham believe that Robin and Red Robin are angels; they think that they do not deserve the valiant person who accepts that every night they might exchange their life if it meant someone else would survive. The newspapers write article after article about their vigilantes, belaying their absolute trust and gratitude in them.

Tim knows that it is entirely unfounded. Every victory that he has is one to try and balance out the sheer tally of losses that are his fault. Vigilantes play God, they choose who lives or who dies. The people Tim has failed miserably, have trusted that he would save them. If Tim had been faster, smarter, better, they’d still be alive and walking around Gotham like normal citizens.

But he wasn’t, not that time.

It rests heavy on his conscious, like someone has placed concrete blocks on his shoulders. He is the sole person to blame for their deaths, no one else. These innocent people, they could have found the cure for cancer, invented greener energy, become the next President. But he missed, he didn’t catch them, he put them in danger.

And now, they lay in a dreamless slumber six foot underground.

He always wanted to go to the funerals. In fact, he did, often standing in dark glasses at the back of the ceremony, the dark trench coat blending in with the black that surrounded the coffin. Bruce didn’t approve, never did, but Tim always went anyway. Last respects to someone who should never have been there in the first place.

It was bearable until he saw their age, and then he could feel his gut tighten as if he had been sucker punched. There had been one, once that was twelve. He hadn’t come out of his room for three days, not for food, not for a run, not for patrol.

The first death on him was the worse, the one that his mind is normally drawn to like mosquitoes to breath. It was a young girl of seventeen, three years older than him at the time. Her name was Samantha Taylor, and he was struck immediately by her long, platinum blonde hair that shone in the moonlight. 

He had done CPR and chest compressions on her for what felt like hours, every one more frantic than the last. His hands had hurt, his lungs had burned but he was not going to stop. Knuckles bleeding, he had counted and repeated and counted and repeated.

The only thing that fluttered had been her long hair in the warm breeze. He never found a pulse.

Sobbing into Bruce, his father figure had let him, let Robin, vent, fairly unperturbed by the sight of a dead teenager in front of him. But for Tim, the experience had scarred him, had taught him that he was not invulnerable by any means.

Tim would always remember, even in his old age, Samantha Taylor’s beautiful hair, so striking laying over the black tarmac, her eyes blown wider than the full moon. 

It was hard to count your victories when all you could see were your losses.

And so Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, the third former boy wonder, stared at his white wall, consumed by the faces of the dead, plagued by his decisions that had resulted in life or death.

He wondered with morbid curiosity mixed with pure, unbridled anger, what person was going to die on his watch next.


End file.
